Project : Let’s Go Skating
| Make this cute little skating penguin into an ornament, or leave as a picture. Either way, he’ll be sure to make you smile. |
|
|
Materials
Note: Any type of thread can be used, not necessarily Perle cotton, floss and Kreinik braid. Only a small amount of the brown and silver were used, so you may substitute if you’d like. |
| Directions |
Step 1
The penguin pattern should print out approximately 4.5" high. If not, please adjust the scale of your printer software and print again. After you've printed the pattern, carefully trace the outline of the penguin onto the canvas using a very light touch with the marker. Color in the black areas with a black permanent marker. The better that you get the canvas colored, the less white will show through in the black areas of the penguin. Don’t worry about coloring over the eye mark with the black marker, the eye is glued on at the end. Tape the edges of the canvas with masking tape to prevent fraying. Using a staple gun, or brass thumb tacks, attach the canvas to the stretcher bars.
The Stitches You may follow the stitching steps in order, or mix them up. The order in which you complete the steps is not really important, but it is helpful to read all of the directions before you start. |
| Step 2 | |
| Continental Stitch The first type of stitch is called the Continental stitch. This stitch lies diagonally on the canvas. This stitch is used on the beak, the scarf, the feet and the skates of the penguin. An example of one complete Continental stitch is shown in Figure 1. The hole that you go up in is number 1; the hole that you go down in is number 2. See how you went diagonally from 1 to 2, or you went to the hole above 1 and then moved over to the right one hole to hole 2. |
 Figure 1 |
|
In Figure 2, let the blue line be the edge of your stitch area.
You will follow the outline as best you can with your stitching on the
canvas, but it will not look exactly like the curve drawn on the canvas.
This is what needlepoint does to curved lines.
Remember to go up in the hole marked 1 and down in the hole marked 2. Go up in the hole marked 3 and go down in the hole marked 4. The hole for 1 and 4 is the same hole, so the thread will share that hole. If you have trouble, place your needle in the hole above the hole you came up in and then move over to the right one hole, and put your needle down in that hole. |
|
|
|
Most of the time you will be doing the Continental stitch in rows, as shown in Figure 3. |
|
Suppose the blue line is the edge of your stitch area. Cover the outline
as you stitch with the floss. Go up in hole 1 and down in hole 2. When
you are ready to start the second row, continue stitching diagonally, as
shown, by going up in hole 9 and down in hole 10, up in hole 11 and down in
hole 12. You may turn your canvas upside down when stitching this row,
which may be easier for you. This is just an example. Your first row of
stitching may or may not have 4 complete stitches in it.
Cut an 18" length of yellow thread. Thread the needle as you did before and begin with a waste knot. Fill in the beak and the feet of the penguin with this stitch. Next, cut an 18" length of the red, thread the needle and begin with a waste knot. Cover the lines drawn in the scarf to create the plaid with the red thread, but not the lines drawn for the outline of the scarf. Now using the same procedure, but with the green thread, fill in the rest of the scarf area, covering the outlines of the scarf. Finally, using the silver metallic thread, stitch over the outline of the skates on the penguin. You only need to stitch one or two rows for the thickness of the skate. |
| Step 3 |
|
Parisian Stitch
The second type of stitch is the Parisian Stitch; this stitch is stitched vertically on the canvas. The Parisian Stitch is used for the black areas of the penguin, his head and his wings. The Figure 4 shows one complete Parisian stitch. It really is two stitches used together. Both stitches are straight stitches. The short stitch is 3 holes high; the tall stitch is 5 holes high. |
 Figure 4 |
 Figure 5 |
Shown in Figure 5 is one row of the Parisian stitch. The tall straight stitches are always next to short straight stitches. The short stitches fit right in the middle of the tall stitches. |
| The second row of the Parisian stitch is shown in Figure 6. See how the short stitches are below the tall stitches? Remember, go up in hole 1 and down in hole 2, up in hole 3 and down in hole 4. |
|
 Figure 7 |
What do you do if the area you are stitching in does not allow you to complete the whole stitch? Then you do as much of the stitch as you can, Figure 7. Suppose the blue line is the edge of your stitch area. Then stitch 3 to 4, stitch 7 to 8, and stitch 9 to 10 are all shorter than the complete stitch would be, but the pattern is still the same -- tall stitch followed by short stitch. |
| Cut an 18" length of black thread. Thread the needle as you did before and begin with a waste knot. Fill in the head and the wings of the penguin with this stitch. Do not worry about covering the penguin’s eye, you will glue the movable eye on top of the stitching. |
| Step 4 |
|
Brick Stitch
The third type of stitch is a variation of the Brick Stitch, and this stitch is stitched vertically on the canvas. This stitch is used for the white areas of the penguin. |
| The Figure 8 shows the Brick stitch variation we are using. The stitches are all vertical straight stitches and three holes high. This stitch is really four straight stitches used together to make the Brick stitch variation. To begin, go up in hole 1 and down in hole 2, up in hole 3 and down in hole 4; move down one hole on the canvas and then go up in hole 5, down in hole 6, up in hole 7 and down in hole 8 |  Figure 8 |
| One complete row of this Brick stitch looks like . .
.(Figure 9)
|
|
| The following rows of the stitch are completed using the same length of
stitch and following the same pattern directly beneath the first row of
stitches, as shown in Figure 10.
If there is not enough room to complete the whole stitch, follow the example above for the Parisian stitch by stitching as much of the Brick stitch as you can. Always keep the pattern consistent when you do this. Cut an 18" length of white thread. Thread the needle as you did before and begin with a waste knot. Fill in the body of the penguin with this stitch. |
 Figure 10 |
| Step 5 | |
|
Satin Stitch
The fourth type of stitch is the Satin Stitch, and this stitch is stitched horizontally on the canvas. This stitch is used for the fringe of the penguin’s scarf. |
|
| This stitch is also a straight stitch, but is done horizontally. The length of each stitch is 5 holes long, and the color of the stitch changes for each row. |
|
| Cut a 9" length of green thread. Starting at the end of the scarf that’s fluttering in the wind, place one green satin stitch so that the your needle comes up in hole 1 which shares a hole with the scarf you have already stitched and goes down in hole 2. Skip the next row, and start another green Satin stitch in the next row. Continue this until there are no more rows left of the scarf. Now cut a.9" length of red thread. Fill in the empty rows with the red thread in the same way you did with the green thread. Go up in hole A and down in hole B, skip the next row, and continue in the next row going up in hole C and down in hole D. I only had 4 rows of green and 4 rows of red for the fringe as shown in the picture at the beginning of the project. | |
| Step 6 | |
| The last thing that you need to stitch is the straps on the ice skates. These straps are not drawn in the diagram, and you will have to refer to the picture at the beginning of the project for placement. Use a 9" length of brown thread. With one stitch for each strap, stitch two straps per foot that travel from the skate to the top of the penguin’s foot over your yellow stitches on the penguin’s feet. | |
| Step 7 | |
|
Glue the movable eye to the penguin’s head, checking the picture at
the beginning for placement. Let dry.
You have a choice here of stopping and making a picture out of the penguin, which just requires a frame -- you can use a picture mat for an inexpensive frame, or you can make an ornament out of the penguin. To make an ornament, take an 18" length of each of the white, green and red threads and braid them together to make the hanging loop. Trim the braid to the length that you want and glue the two ends of the braid to the back of the head of the penguin, forming a loop with the braid above the penguin. Glue the felt to the back of the penguin. Make sure that the felt is glued to all parts of the stitching on the back. When the glue is dry, carefully cut out the penguin from the canvas. This is a bit tricky around the feet and the skates, since the stitching is so narrow. You may want to leave some of the exposed canvas so that you do not cut through your stitching or worse, cut off one of the skates. |
|
| Now you can enjoy your skating penguin wherever you’d like. | |
